Nomotheticism
by safa'at keruth
Summary: The Keys have been lost, their former Keeper long gone, and Honda is trapped in this world-of-worlds forever - yet his greatest concern at the moment is what little remains of his humanity. Ficlet, slight Honda/Malik.


**A/N:** This was my first attempt at **Bananashipping** for the **Yu-Gi-Oh Fanfiction Contest**, which I decided to publish because it really isn't going to turn into a coherent fic any time soon. It's really more of a ficlet built of drabbles than anything else at this point. xD

Disclaimer: Saying I own YGO is like saying that Shadi will ever wear something _besides_ bedroom slippers. (Thanks, Animum ;D)

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**Nomotheticism**

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The night sky of Honda's realm is dark, glowing with the effortless black luminescence of dark matter and dying stars. The constellations dot the shadowed clouds in speckled bands and neon curls, carving out shapes of abstract beauty that have become familiar to him over the long, long stretches of time.

He does not bother to futilely, furiously count the days in tallied lines and checked-off boxes. He has nothing to look forward to and nothing to look back on, and in infinity, there is no beginning, no middle, and no end. Time and its passage mean nothing. At first, he did not realize it; now, he does.

* * *

_"__Look up. Do you see the constellations? Do you see every single bright dot there in the heavens? …Good. Now look again, and listen to me. Those are the souls of the Keepers who used to guard this realm. Once upon a time, many, many eternities ago, the bearers of this duty switched from year to year. Each world that floats around you sent its representatives to be set into a little line, awaiting their turns to guard the Doors. Then, so much later, something changed, and the Keeper was forced to remain in this limbo for millenniums on end, with no relief in sight. He was so relieved to see a child of one world enter that he taught the child to control the Doors and Gates, and he disappeared and left the child to tend to his duties."_

_A hand grasps his arm, throws him against the wall of the tiny cottage and pins him against the stone. "That child is you."_

* * *

He memorizes the stars once more. He has been here long enough to make names and stories for each of the thousands in the sky, and longer yet to remember them all.

When he is tired of staring at them and they begin to blur before his gaze, he moves on. He stands by the Doors and the Gates, clutching their cold bars and reaching hands out toward the worlds that they block from his reach. He makes endless circles among the endless paths of his Garden, where the Doors and Gates tempt him on all sides. Once, it was his goal to see all of the Garden. Once, he hoped that the act of completing that task would set him free.

Once, he was a fool.

* * *

_"He has lost the Keys." The voice is furious in Bakura's ear, but he does not react._

_"Is that so?" He glances up languidly, tracing the globe of a tiny, unimportant world in his hands—the small ones have no need for Gates and Gardens, or so he has inferred._

_"You should be more worried, **Thief**," Atem hisses, his expression livid. "It is your turn to Keep the Gardens next."_

_"Eternity is eternity, my dearest king," Bakura says, the eerie violet of his gaze meeting Atem's, "and death is death. You will die soon, I have heard."_

_Atem's hand goes automatically to the pendant he wears around his neck, a softly shimmering steel cartouche that has his named carved into it, all but the very last of the characters filled in with black. "Palace rumors are nothing but that," he snaps in return, mouth setting into a scowl._

_"And truth is nothing but truth," Bakura says sweetly. "Have you stolen the keys, my king? Stolen them in hopes of using their power to stretch out your life? Time is draining out of your body—I can see it—and nothing short of a miracle will stop its flow." His pale, pale eyes flicker toward the cartouche._

_"I **like** to live," Atem says fiercely. "I have no heirs and no relatives, and my land will fall into ruins if I were to die this young."_

_"Oh, no," Bakura says. "It is your destiny to die and your destiny to escape the collapse of your realm, and cursed would be the one who managed to escape his destiny." He pulls the Keys out of his pocket, dangling them in their tiny golden glory before the king's eyes._

_"Give them **back**—" Atem snatches at them wildly, and Bakura whirls away with the easy deftness of his occupation._

_"Hunger for power?" His smirk is ironic. "That is a quality that belongs to your Council." He holds the key in his hand and crushes his fingers around it, and when he opens them to reveal his palm, it is nothing but a pile of gold dust that he scatters onto the soft green grass._

_"Idiot," Atem whispers._

_The grass shimmers with power, and Bakura throws the last speck of golden powder left in his hand into his mouth and smiles. His red robes fly out as shockwaves of light explode from his body, and Atem and the rest of the people in the cottage are blown away on the tide._

_"Get out."_

* * *

The memories float through the air, drifting like the aimless fall of snow, like little sparks and fireflies and bits of stars. They tangle in the tree branches, in the stars high above, in his hair and in the globes and Gates of the Gardens. Sometimes, when he feels that he will go insane from the confinement and the lack of other company, when he feels like abandoning his duty _somehow_, he watches the memories.

He sees elves dance through giant leaves and the brown waters of a dying planet flowing sluggishly through its streets. He sees boys grow and men die, lizards roast and fish mutate into giant ten-eyed monsters and blood taint the air in red mist. There are so many memories that sometimes he wonders why the air is not perpetually glowing with them as they flutter into the lake in the center of the gardens and light up its waters with their soft golden radiance.

Caught up in his thoughts and the small shred of memory that has just soared past his ear, at first, he does not notice the child.

"Hi," a tiny voice says, and Honda looks up in surprise.

There is a boy standing in front of him, pale blond hair cropped to his chin and huge violet eyes staring, wearing a linen robe and gazing with something close to awe at the Garden and the Gates and the memories that do acrobatics through the sky—

"Hi," Honda responds automatically. _World 1203,_ _Arabic, 668 B.C.E. as it will be called in the future of that time; Malik Ishtar of the Ishtar clan—_

Malik laughs as the memories whirl through his skin and his hair, spinning around with a child's grin. "Teach me!"

* * *

_Honda steps into the world that is the center of all worlds, and he smiles because he loves the sights that spin around him and flit in and out of his thoughts. He loves the sparkle of the grass and the reflecting flashes in the sky, like fireflies drifting lazily before they fall into the pond to his right like dust sucked into a vacuum._

_A man with white hair and washed-out violet eyes plants himself in front of him, his red cloak fluttering slightly in the wake of his stride. His lips stretch into an answering smirk as he holds out his palm, showing the boy a globe of graceful winged creatures that weave their way through tongues of flame. Honda's eyes widen in surprise._

_"__Teach me!"_

_Bakura smirks, and the boy retreats slightly as if sensing that something is wrong. "I will."_

* * *

"No," Honda says, gripping the child's arm with white, trembling fingers and dragging him to the Gate of his world. "I won't."

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**end**

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**A/N: **_Nomotheticism_ means the_ search for abstract universal principles_.

Well, there you have it. Tell me if it's terrible or good or just plain weird. And of course, do that in… A REVIEW! Please review, guys – concrit and other feedback are loved, but gushing is accepted. xD


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